Instead of using a simple lifetime average, Udemy calculates a course's star rating by considering a number of different factors such as the number of ratings, the age of ratings, and the likelihood of fraudulent ratings.

Essentials: Adobe Illustrator for Merch by Amazon

The Essentials for creating designs Merch by Amazon, in Adobe Illustrator

4.3
(5 ratings)

Instead of using a simple lifetime average, Udemy calculates a course's star rating by considering a number of different factors such as the number of ratings, the age of ratings, and the likelihood of fraudulent ratings.

Adobe Illustrator CC 2015.2 was used to create the course. Some features may not be available to those with older versions.

Description

'ESSENTIALS: Adobe Illustrator for Merch by Amazon' is an Illustrator course for creating graphic designs for Amazon's newest platform for content creators, Merch by Amazon. This course is aimed at the intermediate, specifically those who finished 'Basic: Adobe Illustrator for Merch by Amazon' Udemy course.

Although this course is aimed at the intermediate designer and user who completed the prior Udemy course (Basic: Adobe Illustrator for Merch by Amazon), it is not required for the lessons. There is much to be learned here for anyone with Adobe Illustrator.

This course covers all the Essentials you will need to create great looking T-shirt designs. You will learn to vectorize a photo with Image Trace, basic shapes (squares, circles, stars and more), easy color matching, aligning objects, and stacking object above or below other objects. And that's not all--- this course has my take on Typography in Illustrator. Learn how to make compelling, fun, and complex effects for text in Illustrator. I'll show you how to make whacky flowing text with the Touch Type Tool, multiple strokes (outlines), gradient fills, drop shadows, outer glow, text warping (transform), and rotating mandalas.

I show you the basics of the Image Trace function and the many ways you can accomplish different vectorized looks from a typical photo. Image Trace is powerful feature of Illustrator and it is one of those features that Photoshop just can't do.

I show you the basics of making shapes (squares, circles, stars, etc) in Illustrator. Shapes are the major building blocks of Illustrator. You can build complex designs with only basic shapes as well as accent any typical t-shirt design.

Basic Shapes & Dashed Lines

11:48

I show you how the Eyedropper tool can save you time and headaches, with color matching. I also draw all the squares needed to create the background of the Warhol design that this course progresses through.

Eyedropper

08:19

I created 9 colored squares that need to be aligned and spaced evenly to look good. I show you the basics of the alignment tools and the rulers with helpful guide lines.

Rulers/Alignment

10:37

I show you how to manipulate shapes/object in a stacking order. This is like learning Layers in Photoshop but Illustrator is a bit different in how it works. I explain how to move object up and down the layer stack with the Layer menu. I then show you how important the keyboard shortcuts are for this function and why you don't always need the Layer pallet when you work in Illustrator.

Stacking Order

20:06

Now that all the objects are created, I use what we have learned to bring it all together. I do some more colorization as well as opacity adjustments in Isolation Mode. I preview the design on a T-shirt template to get an idea of size and placement. I then go on to discuss saving an editable copy of your design and then exporting a PNG in Merch by Amazon template dimensions.

Finishing up

20:31

+–

Typography (Prerequisite: Essentials; above)

3 Lectures
31:29

I give you an overview of some of the typography designs you can expect in this series.

I pick a font, Image Trace (vectorize) a photo of a heart I downloaded off the internet and put it all together in a circle to create a button/pin mock-up. Simple, everyday text with simple graphic, inside Adobe Illustrator.

I Love You Button

10:17

I use the Pathfinder pallet to create a crescent moon and then I manipulate text in all kinds of ways in order to fit the text in the crescent shape. I then show you how to use the Touch Type Tool to manipulate some more text, where you can manipulate every letter individually. Lean letters forward or back, thin or thicken a letter, or make it taller or shorter, or out of alignment from the rest of the word... that is the fun you'll have with the Touch Type Tool.

Merch Maniacs is a new venture started in late 2015, inspired and motivated by the new opportunities that Merch By Amazon have brought about.

With a combined total of over 25 years of graphic design knowledge and experience. Michael Goldberg and Brandon Ortega teamed up to create a comprehensive video series for learning basic to advanced design in Adobe products, especially Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator CC.

Brandon Ortega is an entrepreneur and reseller who has been selling on eBay for over 10 years and Amazon for almost 3 years. With over 10 years of design experience, Brandon is proficient in Adobe Photoshop and highly skilled in Adobe Illustrator. Brandon enjoys helping the Amazon reseller community and has established business services in providing quality services to automate a sellers business.

Michael Goldberg [BIO coming soon]...

With the new Merch by Amazon service that Amazon is providing, Michael Goldberg and Brandon Ortega can utilize their extensive graphic design knowledge to help sellers learn the skills they need to be able to create their own graphics as opposed to having to outsource.